Growth of food packaging in the UK has been brought to a standstill - despite a sharp increase in sales, the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) revealed yesterday.
WRAP has worked with Defra and the UK’s top retailers and brands under the Courtauld Commitment - a voluntary agreement between WRAP, Defra, the Scottish and Welsh governments and the UK grocery sector - to cut food and packaging waste.
An independent assessment over the last two years shows the total amount of packaging on food products sold in the UK is the same now as it was in 2006, despite substantial increases in the quantities sold.
Fresh produce has been targeted as part of the initiative. Morrisons has saved 85 tonnes of packaging a year on its broccoli and cauliflower wrapping by cutting out trays and labels, and has introduced thinner and lighter flower and plant carriers, saving an additional 97t of packaging a year.
Since March 2008, Waitrose has been working to reduce the thickness of its prepared salad and leaf plastic bags, without affecting shelf life - an activity that will divert 16t of plastic from landfill annually.
Meeting the 2008 target is the first step towards meeting the Courtauld Commitment’s ultimate target of decreasing the amount of packaging waste by 100,000t by 2010.
WRAP hosted a summit of 32 top retailers and brands on Monday, attended by environment minister Joan Ruddock, to discuss possible future action on food and packaging waste, building on the success of the existing agreement.
There was discussion of possible ways forward on packaging and food waste after 2010. Any successor agreement to the Courtauld Commitment may take into consideration measuring the carbon impact of packaging, extending the objectives to cover food waste and packaging at back of store and in the grocery supply chain, and encouraging increasing the amount of recycled content in packaging and making the packaging itself easier to recycle
Environment minister Joan Ruddock said: “Packaging is the most visual, intrusive and irritating part of household rubbish.
“The government will continue to support WRAP and welcomes plans to explore a move away from weight to CO2 as a better measure of the environmental cost of packaging.”
Morrisons’ corporate affairs director Richard Taylor told FPJ: “We want to do the best for our customers, and that means providing quality produce in a convenient format that will last. For example, we get comments from some consumers about wrapping peppers, but we have proved that wrapping them doubles their shelf life. But we must make sure we are not using packaging for the sake of it.”
Jane Milne, British Retail Consortium director of business environment, said: “This is a spectacular achievement by retailers. The UK population and total food sales have risen substantially in two years, yet retailers are not using any more packaging now than they were then. It’s clear evidence of the extent to which retailers have eliminated unnecessary packaging from own-brand products. This demonstrates what can be achieved by voluntary measures.”
In addition, by April 2010, WRAP asked retailers and brands to further support its Love Food Hate Waste Campaign to help achieve its objective of a 155,000-tonne reduction in household food waste. Sainsbury’s has been advising shoppers on fruit and vegetable storage on its website in support of the campaign, and is to share the results of its guidance storage trials with other retailers.
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